Posted
by
Unknown Lameron Monday April 07, 2014 @10:02PM
from the catching-up-with-the-80s dept.

theodp (442580) writes "GeekWire reports that a Microsoft researcher's 1991 video could torpedo Apple's key 'slide to unlock' patent, one of 5 patents that the iPhone maker cited in its demand for $40 per Samsung phone. Confronted with what appears to be damning video evidence of prior art that pre-dates its 'invention' by more than a decade, Apple has reportedly argued that the sliding on/off switch demoed by Catherine Plaisant is materially different than the slide to unlock switch that its 7 inventors came up with. Apple's patent has already been deemed invalid in Europe because of similar functionality present in the Swedish Neonode N1M."
The toggle widgets demoed in the video (attached below) support sliding across the toggle to make it more difficult to swap state (preventing accidental toggling). The video itself is worth a watch — it's interesting to see modern UIs adopting some of the idioms that testing in the early 90s showed were awful (e.g. Gtk+ 3's state toggles).

In the case of that video, the sliding was really because you were "dragging" a representation of a physical object on-screen - and it wasn't unlocking anything, it was just toggling a state in a switch.

The iOS slide to unlock is not a physical counterpart for anything, it's a gesture. There is other prior art that uses wholly virtual gestures to unlock something, which seems much more relevant than anything in this video.

This Windows Phone video [androidcentral.com] is a lot closer to what the iPhone does, though the issue that one has as prior art is that it seems to be on a narrow touch-pad area (like a palm pilot) and not on the touch screen.

Slide-to-unlock has been used for literally, not figuratively, thousands of years. To think this could be patentable is preposterous. Can anyone explain why dead bolts [ebaystatic.com] are not sufficient prior art? How about the sliding locks on drill bit cases [images-amazon.com]?

The problem with patents is the failure of courts to uphold the obviousness standard. If you asked a retarded seamonkey in what way could a touch-screen device prevent unwanted input during periods of non-use, the retarded seamonkey would say "uh, hmmm, well, how about by putting the device into a locked-down state that can only be dismissed by sliding your finger around in a predeterminded pattern unlikely to match random input?" That would cover this stupid slide-to-unlock idea, the idea of entering a predefined secret code, and other similar gestures.

For goodness sake, can't device companies come up with any clever ideas that are not obvious [youtube.com]? The fraction of patents that I hear about that I think are truly clever is something like two percent. I blame the courts for this problem. Congress gave the courts perfectly reasonable standards, and the courts have steadfastly refused to make reasonable judgements.

This should be considered as prior art as it performs exactly the same function, looks similar and most importantly has the same unlock mechanism as the iphone's slide-to-unlock. That is, both user interfaces open a door. The dead bolt is a real world representation (used in millions of homes around the world) of the idea whereas the apple's patent seems to have copied that idea into the computer software domain. So it fails th

You ask a good question based on a bad premise. As I stated, slide-to-unlock was "commercially implemented" thousands of years ago when the first deadbolts were exchanged in commerce, so nobody was copying Apple so much as they joined Apple in copying a longstanding use of fingers.

Imagine a future technology allowing the manipulation of space around a person. Given that technology, which itself would be patentable, would it further be patentable to use that technology to keep you dry in the rain by making a

That seems like grasping at straws. The fact of the matter is we've all used sliders in real life. Air conditioner controls on old cars being a good example. Apple took a concept everyone understood and made a modern look to it, but it could still be a virtual representation of a physical slider.

What needs to be asked is if this patent brought anything to the table or is it superfluous? My question isn't if sliders are innovative since they obviously are not, but is the concept of "slide to unlock your phone" innovative?

I could say no but I'd be lying if I didn't think they might have a case there. From what I remember the iphone was the first slide-to-unlock phone, and now all the smartphones seem to have it.

I'd say "no" primarily because of the bolt/barrel latches that have been holding doors closed for millenia. The idea of "slide to unlock" is obvious from such devices. "On a computer" is not innovation.

I'd say "no" primarily because of the bolt/barrel latches that have been holding doors closed for millenia. The idea of "slide to unlock" is obvious from such devices. "On a computer" is not innovation.

If you actually take the time to watch the video, you might understand the results of UI research are not as obvious as you presume.

For those of you arguing against patents for UI elements in general, this is just HILARIOUS, because this video makes an excellent case for SOMEONE having the patent! =D

Most of the time, I think you guys are just trolling or have a vested interest in the exploitation going on. But for brief moments, one of you manages to convince me that you really are genuinely that stupid, and that I have far fewer peers on this hunk of rock than I thought I did, and it's deeply depressing.

The iphone was also the first major phone to consist exclusively of a touch screen. Prior to that, other phones had hardware buttons to lock and unlock.

The touchscreen wasn't a novel idea anyway. No phone manufacturer ever thought of making a touchscreen based hand-held device prior to Apple as it was believed (and very correctly too) that it was inherently difficult to operate a 3.5" touch display. It was the app store that outweighed the negatives of iPhone touchscreen
, and remember that Apple was already riding on the success of iPod at the time iPhone was released. iPhone clicked and other phone-makers simply followed suit; but that does not mean that

I have to disagree. The only difference between the Apple slide and the MS slide is 20 years of updated graphics. The Apple slide even has a little 3D graphic of a sliding button, just like the MS video.

In the case of that video, the sliding was really because you were "dragging" a representation of a physical object on-screen - and it wasn't unlocking anything, it was just toggling a state in a switch.

It is dragging a slider from one point to another to invoke an action. Making that action "unlock" and having the representation be a generic block [ridble.com] onscreen as opposed to something that looks like a switch is not innovative.

I see your point, but to me it's still different even in the case of iOS 6 - yes you are dragging a physical looking element, but that doesn't correspond to anything real - what real-world thing do you drag one way and then the whole thing vanishes? The button itself is physical but not "real".

To me it's just very different than manipulating a very direct physical representation of a real switch on-screen, where the dragging isn't even a flat dragging as it is taking an object through an arc by dragging ov

I see your point, but to me it's still different even in the case of iOS 6 - yes you are dragging a physical looking element, but that doesn't correspond to anything real - what real-world thing do you drag one way and then the whole thing vanishes? The button itself is physical but not "real".

To me it's just very different than manipulating a very direct physical representation of a real switch on-screen, where the dragging isn't even a flat dragging as it is taking an object through an arc by dragging over as it swings a switch back and forth.

It is a great point that a major issue is that at no point are they showing that action unlock anything. It seems a small point to most of us to go from a switch to an unlock but of such things patents are formed. That may well be wrong, but as that's how the system is you can't argue about t being invalid based on "common sense", when the patent system is built to diverge from same...

You're putting it out there that the MS example has buttons while the iPhone doesn't have any buttons. I'd argue, the MS example is more sophisticated because it supports multiple buttons, while the iPhone has one button: The iPhone. The MS example entirely encapsulates the iPhone's technology and moves forward from there.

It's a UTILITY PATENT, not a design patent. The look of the element on the screen is irrelevant, it is the function of the element that matters. And that is clearly predated by the Microsoft video. And whilst I am not a patent attorney, I do hold 25 utility - and 30 design - patents, I've been through it enough to understand the difference and what is relevant in each case. Design patent = look; utility patent = function.

the whole point is there isn't a pointer. pointers stay in one place when you stop moving the mouse. for iOS, there is no selector location when the screen is not being manipulated. if your phone shows a pointer sometimes then you should stop using a toy phone.

Respectfully, and without necessarily disagreeing with your fundamental point, those terms don't mean what you think they do, legally.

"Prior art" is "anything in the relevant art, that's prior." The Wright Brother's plane is prior art for the Space Shuttle. The Model T is prior art for the Tesla Model S. That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim. So, for example, even though the Model T is prior art for the Model S, it wouldn't invalidate a patent on the battery pack, for example. Similarly, sliding deadbolts are prior art for the virtual slide-to-unlock, but they alone don't show everything in the patent.

"Obvious" is a legal conclusion, like "guilty". It's different than just the "duh" gut feeling that we typically mean when we call something obvious. And just as you show someone is guilty by showing that they committed each and every element of a crime, you show that something is obvious by showing that one or more pieces of prior art exist that, alone or in combination, teach each and every element of the patent claim. So, again, sliding deadbolts show unlocking something... but they alone don't show all the other bits of the claim, like a handheld electronic device. That means you'd have to at least combine "deadbolts" plus "mid-90s Palm smartphone" to show that element.

Using the right terms - anticipatory prior art when you mean that, or obvious when you have a combination of prior art references to invalidate a claim - will increase your credibility with people who are in power to make changes to the patent system.

The patent system is intended to help engineers and inventors. It is their understanding of "obvious" and "prior art" that is relevant, not the understanding of (imitation) lawyers with a stick up their ass, like you.

Yes, slide-to-unlock has plenty of prior art in every sense of the word, and the arguments people have been making here are relevant: (1) it's a simple simulation of a familiar physical paradigm, and (2) it has been implemented numerous times before Apple patented it.

The patent system is intended to help engineers and inventors. It is their understanding of "obvious" and "prior art" that is relevant, not the understanding of (imitation) lawyers with a stick up their ass, like you.

Well, I'm sure that refusing to understand the language you're arguing about will be really convincing when you're trying to convince legislators to enact patent reforms. Using your own definitions for words can't possibly cause them to ignore you. Good luck with that.

Please note the opening line: "Prior art constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."

the patent office assumes when a patent is filed for that company did the work to see if it was done before. Which Apple has a clear history of stealing others work and claiming it as their own. Its left up to the court and someone to fight it to make it invalid. Problem is if its used against people that have no $ to spent on court cases they just pay even if the patent is bogus and invalid.

It slides like a deadbolt and is used to "unlock" the phone, so it is functionally similar to a deadbolt.

Such deadbolt predate the iphone by over a hundred years. Apple, it seemed, was hell-bent on copying well known ideas that people are already extremely familiar with in real life, virtualize them, and then would go and try to claim that *THEY* invented them.

1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising:detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image;continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; andunlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display.

To show a patent claim is not new, you have to show that a single piece of prior art shows everything in the patent claim. This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device, doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device. But that's just one of the requirements for validity - 35 USC 102. Incidentally, this type of prior art is called "anticipatory prior art," because it anticipates everything in the patent. It's what laymen usually mean when they say "there's prior art for X patent!" That statement doesn't mean anything, because there's always prior art for something - Neanderthal Ug's wheel is prior art for all-terrain run-flat tires. Just not anticipatory prior art.

Another requirement is non-obviousness - 35 USC 103. Under this requirement, you can show that a patent claim is obvious by showing that a combination of prior art references together teach each and every element in the claim and that they could be reasonably combined. So, if the Claim is A+B+C+D and one reference shows A+B and another shows C+D and they could be combined, that shows that the Claim is obvious.

So, for example, if you can find other references that show a hand-held device, continuous movement of an image, and unlocking a device, those combined with this may be enough to show that the Claim is obvious. That should be pretty easy to find.

One caveat there is that if a reference teaches away from the combination, it may not be available to use in the rejection. So, if the C+D reference says "never combine me with A+B, because bad things happen", then it may not be obvious to combine it with A+B (there may also be an unrecognized E element that makes it work with C+D). Here, the usability study at the end of the video seems to argue away from using sliders as touch-screen switches. But that may not be a strong enough disparagement of their use, nor does it necessarily argue away from its combination with an unlocking system.

Disclaimer: I am a patent attorney, but I am not your patent attorney. The above is not legal advice and is merely for (my own) amusement purposes. I have not spent any serious time looking into this patent, the specification, or any of the dependent Claims.

To show a patent claim is not new, you have to show that a single piece of prior art shows everything in the patent claim. This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device,

I bet I could lift her computer.:)

doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device.

Actually the slider demoed at 2:58 in the video shows a static background image On ------- Off, with the 'slider' box moving continuously back and forth along with the gesture motion.

" Here, the usability study at the end of the video seems to argue away from using sliders as touch-screen switches. But that may not be a strong enough disparagement of their use, nor does it necessarily argue away from its combination with an unlocking system."

Indeed; she even says (paraphrasing) "the a sliding gesture is more difficult, but reduces errors".

Another requirement is non-obviousness - 35 USC 103. Under this requirement, you can show that a patent claim is obvious by showing that a combination of prior art references together teach each and every element in the claim and that they could be reasonably combined. So, if the Claim is A+B+C+D and one reference shows A+B and another shows C+D and they could be combined, that shows that the Claim is obvious.

The offensive thing here is that arrival of a portable touchscreen makes a lot of things about it obvious. We already had done the prior research on touch screen controls -- right up to and including the finding that the slide gesture in particular was just awkward enough that it was good for preventing accidental activation of the touch screen control.

Then a decade or so later, we have portal touchscreen device and they are looking for a touch screen control to access it that would be suitable -- the key characteristic being that it prevents accidental activation.

It doesn't take a super genius to connect those dots. Slide-to-unlock was GOING to happen.

It doesn't take a super genius to connect those dots. Slide-to-unlock was GOING to happen.

Years of experience tells me no. It would have been a button. If by going to happen you mean "a decade later", sure, I could see the Dells and Compaqs of the world eventually getting there. They all had portable touch screens for a decade prior, and no slide to unlock had yet to appear. I owned a 90s era PocketPC, and hey, no slide to unlock. So for something so obvious for people not to have come up with over a span of 10 years? Eh.

Patents also don't care if a competitor would have eventually come up with

So for something so obvious for people not to have come up with over a span of 10 years?

IMO the patentable part should be in the technique of the invention. Slide to unlock may have taken a while to apply... but actually implementing it the moment it was requested was within the capability of every programmer on the planet... all the way back to 1991, without notes, without assistance... just the requirement itself is enough to implement it.

Yes, but the patent claims something specific. If that specific thing is not shown in the prior art reference, then you need to find another reference that shows that element. This shouldn't be too hard: I'm sure you can find a hand-held device in the field of computers before 2004.

The point is that you can't simply ignore an element in the claim because you're lazy, just like you can't convict someone of murder without anyone being dead because they totally look like a murderer. You have to actually find

But isn't that just more of the "this function, that fumigation ON THE INTERNET" sort of thing?

Yeah, that sort of thing doesn't actually exist. Let's say you had a patent that claimed "this function, that fumigation" (we'll call that A), "ON THE INTERNET" (which we'll call B), then it claims A+B, right? Well, if you can find a reference that shows A, and you can find, say, the Internet, for B, then you can show the patent is invalid over those two references. And that should be pretty easy, yeah?

Thing is, there aren't actually any patents that have claims that say "[known function] ON THE INTERNET!"

OK, what is that patent said 'on a white background', and the prior art has a black background. or the prior art happened to be on a 4:3 ratio monitor, while the patent specified 16:9 ratio screen?

Does that make an actual, practical difference to the implementation?

If the patent was 'shake to unlock', 'twist in midair 3 times to unlock' or something you couldn't do on an older fixed mount touchscreen, the fact it's on a handheld would be relevant; in this case, it is not.

This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device, doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device.

If you actually watch the video it does show continuous movement of a slider (2:55-2:59) and while it doesn't show "unlocking a device" that is just the succeeding action and I doubt that Android's version of "unlock" is the same as iOS's so that part would be different anyway between iOS and Android, all they would have to do is called it something other than "unlock". The only other element is "a hand-held electronic device" and if in the US that qualifies as "innovative" then there are a shitload of thin

This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device, doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device.

If you actually watch the video it does show continuous movement of a slider (2:55-2:59)...

Honestly if you watch the video from 2:55 to 2:59 then look at a video of unlocking an iPhone3G are you actually going to tell me you think the iPhone version is innovation?

As mentioned in a different reply, I see non-continuous movement: slider at the left side; slider in the middle; slider at the right side. Three images, replaced in succession, as I said.

Additionally, as I said, that simply means that this reference alone does not show everything in the patent claim. However, I'm sure you can find another piece of prior art that shows continuous movement of an image. If so, you can then combine those two pieces of prior art to help show the claim is invalid.
You actually n

You misunderstand, I'm not saying the patent is invalid by the current rules of the patent system, I'm sure you are correct on that. I'm saying the differences are so trivial that only an idiot would look at the Microsoft one, then at the Apple one and conclude that the Apple one is innovative and with that in mind the US patent system's bar for innovation is unbelievably low.

You misunderstand, I'm not saying the patent is invalid by the current rules of the patent system, I'm sure you are correct on that. I'm saying the differences are so trivial that only an idiot would look at the Microsoft one, then at the Apple one and conclude that the Apple one is innovative and with that in mind the US patent system's bar for innovation is unbelievably low.

Well, the current system (which is actually the same in every country that's a member of the Paris Convention, which includes 175 countries currently) was built to avoid hindsight, because everything can be considered obvious in hindsight. It's essentially a due process requirement - just as we make the state show that a defendant committed every element of a crime before we throw them in jail as guilty, we make the patent office show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art before we t

To show a patent claim is not new, you have to show that a single piece of prior art shows everything in the patent claim.

It is, of course, easiest to invalidate a patent if each of claim has prior art for each of its components. But that is not necessary. For example, just because nobody has published prior art specifically for a wheel painted in red polka dots doesn't mean that a patent on such a thing would be valid. The red polka dots have nothing to do with the actual technical contribution of the pate

During case about a year ago, there was a ton of Prior art given to the jury, But they decided to ignore it all cause as quoted "it would of taken to long".

Respectfully, I believe you're misquoting the jury there. They said that at the beginning of their deliberations they got bogged down on the bounce-back and pinch-to-zoom patents. To speed things up, they skipped past that patent and dealt with some of the other easier ones before returning. It's like if you've got 10 tasks and one is really difficult, it's frequently more efficient to get the 9 easy ones done first. It's certainly less depressing.

Apple being able to use home town jury that clearly will never rule against the home town company is a joke, then now Apple does have Obama on the take protecting from sales ban which should be in place on some apple products for stealing Samsung patents and refusing to pay for them.

Actually, the more logical explanation, given what was said by the jury foreman, was that they got bogged down on the first day, but he then had an ah-ha moment the next morning, and helped them get past their confusion with his insight. He reasoned that it was really hard for him to get a patent, because the patent office kept telling him about prior art and obviousness, etc., and that stuff can be really confusing. By extension, it must have been hard for Apple. The insight was that if the Patent Office had granted the patents then they must be valid, and all of Samsung's defense was just smoke and mirrors: the Patent Office must have seen all that and still granted the patents... He explained this to the other members of the jury, who had no clue about patents, and they agreed it seemed like a good insight - avoid all those messy deliberations that had bogged them down, assume the patents were valid (in direct contraction to the jury instructions), go with Apple's general flavor that they were the innovators and Samsung just copy, and get down to the business of deciding which phones violated which patents. As for Samsung's claims, those were just them tit-for-tat, they weren't real...

This is not to say that Samsung didn't copy, or didn't violate the patents, or that the patents are valid. Just that their case hinged on showing the patents were invalid, and the jury didn't answer that question. From what was said, there is no indication that they ever came back to the hard questions (and given the time frame, they couldn't have).

Unsurprisingly, Apple are going with the same defense in this trial - spinning a story about the years of work and effort that went into the iPhone, and avoiding talking about the specifics of the actual patents in question.

I'm going to break my usual rule and apply to an AC, simply because this is a good enough question to address. But generally, I will not reply to people who refuse to participate in a back-and-forth dialogue.

That's a huge part of the problem - the legalese obfuscates the engineering. An engineer would point out that the swipe changes state. That was already shown in the "prior art." Why should it matter whether it was on a handheld device?

That's the point - the legalese is engineering. Invaliding a patent claim is a function that requires a set of inputs, one input per claim element. The claim itself is Boolean logic, with a big ol' AND between every element. If you fail to put in an input, if you fail to find a piece of prior art showin

To show a patent claim is not new, you have to show that a single piece of prior art shows everything in the patent claim. This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device, doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device>

It does show continuous movement. She discusses sliding from one side to another, and that it makes it harder to accidentally switch the toggle.

Continuous movement of her finger - the image appears to have three positions (left, center, right). Mind you, while that's a distinction between this video and the claim, I don't believe that that makes this patentable - I'm sure we can find a "continuously" moving image before 2004 in the art. But that requires a second piece of prior art to be combined with this, which was my point. It's a process thing.

The only thing really missing is "unlocking the hand-held electronic device" But the demoer keeps talking about a general concept of "toggling" Surely it is obvious that if you can toggle, then you can toggle anything, including toggling from a locked to an unlocked state.

That's the thing - you can't just say "surely it's obvious" any more than you can say "surely, he's gu

One problem associated with using touch screens on portable devices is the unintentional activation or deactivation of functions due to unintentional contact with the touch screen. Thus, portable devices, touch screens on such devices, and/or applications running on such devices may be locked upon satisfaction of predefined lock conditions, such as upon entering an active call, after a predetermined time of idleness has elapsed, or upon manual locking by a user.

Devices with touch screens and/or applications running on such devices may be unlocked by any of several well-known unlocking procedures, such as pressing a predefined set of buttons (simultaneously or sequentially) or entering a code or password. These unlock procedures, however, have drawbacks. The button combinations may be hard to perform. Creating, memorizing, and recalling passwords, codes, and the like can be quite burdensome. These drawbacks may reduce the ease of use of the unlocking process and, as a consequence, the ease of use of the device in general.
Accordingly, there is a need for more efficient, user-friendly procedures for unlocking such devices, touch screens, and/or applications.

Apple was trying to come up with a way to prevent butt-dialing and other unwanted device actions. The point of using a sliding motion is that it's unlikely to happen via random touches, but is reasonably intutive.

Microsoft's video doesn't really show a slider. It shows touch buttons that look visually like sliders. But you can trip them just by touching in the active area for the desired state. This is shown in the video where the demonstrator runs their finger down a column of switches and they all switch. Apple requires an explicit "click and drag" operation to unlock.

It may seem trivial, but if nobody did it before the patent, and everybody wanted to do it after the patent, it's a valid invention. "Obvious" does not mean "obvious in hindsight".

Apple was trying to come up with a way to prevent butt-dialing and other unwanted device actions... Microsoft's video doesn't really show a slider. It shows touch buttons that look visually like sliders. But you can trip them just by touching in the active area for the desired state. This is shown in the video where the demonstrator runs their finger down a column of switches and they all switch. Apple requires an explicit "click and drag" operation to unlock.

Microsoft's video doesn't really show a slider. It shows touch buttons that look visually like sliders. But you can trip them just by touching in the active area for the desired state. This is shown in the video where the demonstrator runs their finger down a column of switches and they all switch. Apple requires an explicit "click and drag" operation to unlock.

Check out 4:12 in the video, showing a drag gesture on the lever icons. She also explains at 4:35-4:50 how, unlike a click at either active end, a drag gesture reduces the possibility of accidental triggering.

The only thing worse than granting ridiculously obvious, simple, overly broad, or just plain stupid patents (and the companies trying to enforce them) is the absurd state of copyright protection in the USA.

The only thing worse than granting ridiculously obvious, simple, overly broad, or just plain stupid patents (and the companies trying to enforce them) is the absurd state of copyright protection in the USA.

Did you actually watch the video? You know, where the nice lady discusses the pros and cons of about ten different ways of doing roughly the same thing, and results of the usability studies?

If anything, this video demonstrates this line of work is not obvious or stupid. Arguing over prior art is one thing, but arguing against patenting UI elements in the context of this R&D video is just a little stupid.

Did you seriously see anything there that wasn't painfully obvious? All the video demonstrated to me is that Microsoft throws their money away. It struck me as a bureaucratic butt covering move that they hired her to go through these motions in the first place.

Did you seriously see anything there that wasn't painfully obvious? All the video demonstrated to me is that Microsoft throws their money away. It struck me as a bureaucratic butt covering move that they hired her to go through these motions in the first place.

Hindsight is always 20:20. In fact the best ideas, those that become second nature, are often considered obvious after the event. The real question though is, if they were so obvious, why didn't someone else do it before?

Ahh, the call to captain hindsight. That we can use hindsight now doesn't make it non-obvious at a previous point in time.

"why didn't someone else do it before"

Firstly because there always has to be a first person.

Secondly because no-one else was asked to provide a solution, so they were not given a chance to give a solution to a problem they were not thinking about (i.e. in 1990, only a small group of people were thinking about this).

Thirdly because touch screens weren't a dime a dozen commodity. They were an expensive specialised piece of equipment, restricting their use and research to a select few (e.g. a multi-billion dollar corporation).

She and her cohorts were presented with a problem and came up with close to a dozen ways of solving it. These particular ways mimicked real life objects. If these particular solutions are not obvious to you, it doesn't mean they aren't obvious to the rest of us.

Did you seriously see anything there that wasn't painfully obvious? All the video demonstrated to me is that Microsoft throws their money away. It struck me as a bureaucratic butt covering move that they hired her to go through these motions in the first place.

Ignore for the moment that this video is almost 15 years old. And consider that many of the problem she brings up are prevalent in a lot of software today. Apple is still making some of the mistakes...

A Patent is technically REQUIRED to not be obvious to a person 'skilled in the art' when given information of the prior art.So, a phone UI developer would have to still not find the apple slide to unlock patent obvious given knowledge that aUI idea to unlock the phone was needed, and knowledge of is video.

All of this of course should make the whole 'on a capacitive multitouch screen' approach, etc laughable - but again therules are being VERY selectively enforced.

Of course Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system, and basic patent law is not beingapplied in their cases - could it PERHAPS have something to do with the huge number of patents they (and several notable others)fine with them, and therefore the percentage of the patent offices total revenue they generate?

How do I know the requirements above? I have at times spent years arguing with the patent office trying to get patents acceptedwhich were ENORMOUSLY less obvious that what passes for acceptable from certain major cooperated. With little to no success.

The rules are simply being blatantly flouted by a certain select group.

"Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system"

Not defending their current practice (slide to unlock and pinch zoom clearly have prior art), but it comes from their past experience.

One obvious example is the keyboard/trackpad layout of all modern laptops. It was Apple on their PowerBooks who pushed the keyboard toward the screen, making room for palmrests and pointing devices below. Prior to that, everyone was putting keyboards tight against the lower edge. They didn't patent it, and the rest of the industry quickly followed.

"Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system"

Not defending their current practice (slide to unlock and pinch zoom clearly have prior art), but it comes from their past experience.

One obvious example is the keyboard/trackpad layout of all modern laptops. It was Apple on their PowerBooks who pushed the keyboard toward the screen, making room for palmrests and pointing devices below. Prior to that, everyone was putting keyboards tight against the lower edge. They didn't patent it, and the rest of the industry quickly followed.

I never knew that. I hate them just a little more now than I did 5 minutes ago. These trackpads-under-the-palms are fucking terrible.

Not just "I miss the clit-mouse on my old Thinkpad" terrible...

"I need to disable this because I'm constantly moving the cursor with my palms while I try to type and now I need to go buy a USB mouse for this poorly designed piece of shit." terrible.

"I need to disable this because I'm constantly moving the cursor with my palms while I try to type and now I need to go buy a USB mouse for this poorly designed piece of shit." terrible.

It used to happened to me, maybe 10 years ago during the PowerBook era. I don't remember the MacBook Pros ever giving me this problem. Now, I have yet to use a non Apple laptop that comes with a trackpad that is nearly as nice to use.

Not defending their current practice (slide to unlock and pinch zoom clearly have prior art), but it comes from their past experience.

Apple has been patenting stuff for decades, so your contention that they started patenting because they were the victims of patent trolls is just wrong.

Besides, Apple didn't invent the pointing-device-below-keyboard layout anyway, they merely popularized it. If they had invented it and it had been patentable, you can be sure they would have patented it.

no one should have ever had to show prior art...the patents for UI elements like "pinch and zoom" are absolutely ludicrous & are a product of ignorance and manipulation

I think this goes to the core of your understanding of this issue...this you describe here, this should not be at all patentable:

One obvious example is the keyboard/trackpad layout of all modern laptops. It was Apple on their PowerBooks who pushed the keyboard toward the screen, making room for palmrests and pointing devices below. Prior to that, everyone was putting keyboards tight against the lower edge. They didn't patent it, and the rest of the industry quickly followed.

if this is "what is patentable" then its so broad nothing matters...it's a complete waste of time to think about these issues

what should be patentable? I don't have the answers, but that doesn't mean we can't conclude that the status quo is waaaaay too broad to be consistent from one patent to the next

You're mostly right here. The thing with Apple being about integration and design, is that they are really good at it. A lot of people like to crack on them as not "innovating" or whatever, but when it really comes down to it, the people crying about innovation are much worse at what Apple does, and like to wait until Apple figured out how to make it and market it, and then repeat it without spending all the R&D cash. The PC industry has been doing it for decades.

If it's so easy to integrate and design a product, then why is history so replete with absolutely fucking terrible devices, and implementations of "obvious" technology? If Apple doesn't bring any innovation to the table, then why aren't these supposedly innovative companies eating Apple's lunch?

Sure, Apple has a failure here and there; but they're success rate is FAR higher than just about anyone else.

They filed a patent for a rectangular tablet with rounded corners on Sept 14, 2012, and were granted a 14 year patent term on Sept. 24, 2013. But don't let reality get in the way of the Dunning–Kruger effect. That would be silly.

If the cosmetics are the only aspect being patented, then shouldn't the Star-Trek and pretty much every other purely cosmetic SF tablet that was visually portrayed count as prior art? Rounded rectangles aren't exactly anything new.

If the cosmetics are the only aspect being patented, then shouldn't the Star-Trek and pretty much every other purely cosmetic SF tablet that was visually portrayed count as prior art? Rounded rectangles aren't exactly anything new.

In a design patent, cosmetics are the only part that can be patented - it literally cannot claim anything functional.

And a design patent claims everything shown in the drawings... The test for whether it's obvious or not is whether one of ordinary skill in the art of design would consider the design to give the same visual impression as the prior art references. Like, if I showed you the iPad-looking pictures in that patent, and then I drew a rounded rectangle, you couldn't tell them apart. It's actually very similar to trade dress.

But the Star Trek PADD and the 2001 portable television both give different visual impressions. The PADD has a big metal flat front with a few different touch screen portions of different shapes and sizes. The Kubrik pad is tall and narrow and has an angled portion with a bunch of channel buttons. While they're all tablet devices, no one would actually confuse two of them.

As opposed to searching through some patents bought in a bankruptcy proceeding, hunting down an example of something vaguely similar, and shouting "infringement, infringement"? That strategy seems to work pretty well.

These are the same kind of idiots that seriously think apple patented a rounded rec

Actually, yes, that is how it works: prior art invalidates patents. So does obviousness. And the people most capable of judging the relevance of prior art, as well as obviousness, are actually engineers. So cut the crap and stop pretending that patents are some arcane, magical incantation that normal human beings can't make sense of.

Here's your prior art [imgur.com]. Seriously, taking a common real world design and making something on a touch-screen that looks like it should never be patentable. It would be like patenting an on-screen control that looks like a dial or an on-screen meter that looks like a galvanometer.

Apple's patent claim is for a portable device that uses a single image. The video does not demonstrate a portable device, nor is it done using a single image. Notably, as shown in the screen capture or TFA, two different images represent ON vs. OFF.

To be clear...you are stating why this video may not apply to show that the Apple's patent may be non-novel, because it may be an improvement over the prior art, however, that certainly doesn't mean it's nonobvious, right?

Note: I haven't read the actual patent's claims so I have no idea if there's anything nonobvious in there (patent claims != title, unlike what most/.'ers think), but your points of "on a portable device" and "done using a single image" sure don't seem nonobvious.

Looks exactly the same to me. Take your finger, touch the slider, and move your finger to drag the slider to change the state. If you think Apple's implementation is fundamentally different, then patent trolls have taught you well, young lawyer.

Apple is a straight up troll, they haven't innovated a damn thing on on their devices in 4 years pretty much. Samsung has better phones and more reasonable prices with sizes people want not Apples take what we give you crap. One of said patents was for a rounded rectangle as well. Having a court case in a court house full of Apple people is complete joke.

(3) Apple can ask whatever price they want for licenses to non-FRAND patents (unlike Samsung with its FRAND patents)

This is probably the most dangerous precedent Apple is trying to set. The only reason FRAND patents are priced lower than regular patents is that by being adopted as a standard, more products will license the patent. Hence the patent holder makes up in volume what they lose by charging less per device.

Just to correct a misunderstanding, the veto of the ITC decision was absolutely correct, and did not do anything to the value of Samsung's FRAND patents:

1) The ITC does not have the power to award monetary damages for infringement. They only have the power to issue an injunction against imports;
2) Samsung agreed, when they put their patents into FRAND status, that they would never seek an injunction against an infringer: instead, they would only be allowed to seek monetary damages. This is the same for ev

The issue is with the inherent bias of either the article submitter or the editor. Just look at the choice of words in the title -- "Dumb" "Patent Trolling" -- none of these words show up in the linked article, yet the submitter chose such words to slant.

In my case I don't work for Apple. I just read Slashdot frequently and comment on stories I have understanding of. I am an iOS developer (hardly a revelation since my profile says as much). That does mean I spend a lot of time thinking about touch interfaces, which is part of why I see a difference I think where other people consider it the same. To me there's a world of difference between the two things.

Given my Slashdot UID it would be pretty sad to be an intern anywhere for that duration of time...

I knew my original comment would be downvoted anyway, so I'm not sure how you can claim it's driving the discussion anywhere. I just wanted to make a point I thought relevant after watching the video. Note that I did later link to a Windows Phone video I though was more relevant...

Also if you read way back through past posting history (because it's not come up in a while) I am far from a fan of software patents. So it's not like I'm trying to protect Apple or anyone's patent. I just want to explain why the video may not be as useful as it seems to be at a glance, using expertise that I have to evaluate what is presented.

I honestly don't think there are company organized groups of people on any sites doing what you suggest because the return would be so low as to make it pointless. I *do* think there are organized groups of people out there working comment threads not run by companies, I've been the subject of moderation floods that were way too rapid and also indiscriminate (like every single comment posted in the last few days down voted to -5 regardless of content or subject). But even those actions hardly carry any permanence to them, so I wonder why those people bother. It's like, I lost Karma on a niche message board? Who cares!

That's the difference between companies and private groups, companies give up when it's obviously futile but people just keep going even when all hope seems lost. Or perhaps especially...